Crypsi is a collective, rumoured to be based in Washington, US of anonymous, crypto-anarchist artists, early adopters, believers and campaigners for bitcoin.
Crypsi was asked to make some pictures for CrypArt by Satushi back in 2014 and through this they learned about bitcoin, becoming obsessed with how important this was for the future of mankind.
Crypsi produced some of the most iconic pictures in the crypart range, with ‘Canary Wars’ blowing away many bitcoiners at various meetups and conferences back in 2014. Pictures such as ‘Dirty Fiat’, ‘Communism 2.0’ & ‘LibBity’ remain some of the most memorable images (and bitcoin wallets) of the early days of bitcoin memes and ‘cryptoart’.
Since then Crypsi has focussed their art on promoting bitcoin and campaigning against mainstream media and institutions who continuously disparage bitcoin.
All pictures are hand stencilled spray paint limited editions, with their first picture, ‘Too Big to Jail’ being an edition of 3, with one given to Max Keiser and one donated to a fund raiser for ProTip (a bitcoin start up) in late 2014.
Crypsi has often courted controversy, which underlines their need for privacy.
One of their earliest works ‘Adopt Now’ used religious imagery, ‘The Real Crooks’ highlighted the corruption of US government agencies following Silk Road closure, ‘End the Fed/FUD’ was an attack on mainstream bitcoin reporting and ‘J. Demon’ savagely attacked the head of JPMorgan who is an outspoken critic of bitcoin.
Crypsi also produced one of the most widely used images during the no2x movement, with a simple middle figured gesture in ‘No2x’ and produced tongue in cheek art with a take on the UASF pic that went viral.
In late 2017/ early 2018 Crypsi released their ‘Seeing Red’ range, with a popular picture ‘Bitcoin Drain’ highlighting how wealth will continue to be fed to bitcoin and ‘Fedtime’ reminding people that ridding that world of the Federal Reserve has to be a key aim of bitcoin, although ‘The Bitcoin Mantra’ offers some compassion to the bankers/ suits who continue to fight bitcoin.
Crypsi continues to use twitter as a tool of ‘offensive’ for the bitcoin community with their personal hashtag #btcoffensive bringing a tear to many a bank/ government or ‘shitcoiner’. they also lay claim to the invention of numerous hashtags including #hypershitcoinization, #tronrekt and #crippleripple.
A popular contest on Twitter back in 2015 saw Crypsi challenge people to tweet offensively at Citibank (that had more retweets than anything Citi put out that month!) and they have not slowed down since..
Notorious for attacking bitconnect on twitter in the months before it collapsed as one of the biggest scams in history and for being almost a sole voice against early riptards (supporters of ripple) – attacking xrp marketing accounts and arguing with idiots who believed them (mostly when ripple was about $2).
Crypsi was a prolific user of changetip on twitter in the early days of bitcoin, attempting to ‘tip’ bitcoin to celebrities, causes and aspiring bitcoiners.
Needless to say Floyd Mayweather and Paris Hilton ignored their tips, yet ended up promoting ico scams years later.. (although Crypsi is still friends with people who did take the time to reply and accept tips, including a founding member of Depeche Mode!).
Crypsi is currently on an ISIS wanted list after tipping many of the twitter accounts who expose and report ISIS promoters and caused an even bigger firestorm after tipping a Kurdish fighter involved in fighting ISIS on the ground back in 2016.
Crypsi has also picked fights with many crypto personalities online, with ‘Alien Ether’ and ‘Bcash Squatters’ highlighting the hypocrisy and greed of many altcoiners. Needless to say their account is banned by probably 50% of ‘crypto-twitter’, having also been attacked (and wrongly exposed) by Craig Wright about a year before the holdanout saga (resulting in faketoshi’s main sock puppet account being banned for a month).
Their pictures are highly collectible (most pictures are limited editions of 5 or 6), but are only offered for sale by private treaty, customers are usually vetted to ensure they are proponents of bitcoin and until recently they are only available for purchase in bitcoin.
Crypsi claims to be have hunted by hitmen, the FBI, DEA, Chinese Agents, big looking Russians and numerous private investigators. They move locations every 2 years to escape authorities, so they can continue their attacks on a barbaric, unjust and outdated financial system and ignorant shitcoiners (who promote any cryptocurrency as a rival to bitcoin).